Hamasa Ebadi, 27, and her parents, Hamida, 58, and Atiq, 60, opened the tiny restaurant in the fall of 2020, inside a former bubble-tea shop. And Assad Akbari, the former longtime general manager and chef at the Helmand, has announced plans to open his own Afghan restaurant this year, on the same street.

Ms. Ebadi said she came to the United States in 2010 for high school. “I wanted to continue my education, and under the Taliban, women simply weren’t allowed to,” she said. Today, Ms. Ebadi commutes between Baltimore and Dallas, where she works as a neuroscience researcher.

The Taliban’s return to power, and its continued subjugation of women, prompted one restaurateur, Omar Masroor, to take symbolic action. Last September, Mr. Masroor, 47, stepped away from the operations of his family’s restaurants — Bistro Aracosia in Washington, and Aracosia McLean and Afghan Bistro in Northern Virginia — and promoted two of his daughters, Taliha, 23, and Iman, 22, to management positions.

Today, the sisters, together with their mother, Sofia, 46, who oversees the restaurants’ food, largely run the operation — roles that would be denied to them in Afghanistan, where the Taliban grants women little freedom outside the home. The family is planning to open a fourth restaurant, Afghania, in Georgetown, and is training the youngest daughter, Zainab, 21, to be a manager as well.

“We feel horrible for the situation for women in Afghanistan,” Sofia said. “For my daughters to know that we’re confident, to know that we believe in them, it gives them that little push to be confident in themselves.”

Mr. Noori, the Richmond restaurateur, trained as a chef in Kabul. After his arrival in Virginia, he worked a number of different low-paying jobs, including driving for a ride service.

“I printed up a card: Chef Noori, Catering, Afghani Food,” he said. “I was always talking about my restaurant dream to people.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/18/dining/afghan-restaurants-refugees-taliban.html

Whatever his crypto bona fides, Mr. Belfort is unquestionably qualified to discuss the subject of financial fraud, a major problem in the digital-asset industry. In the 1990s, the firm he founded, Stratton Oakmont, operated a sophisticated stock-manipulation scheme. At the height of their wealth, he and his business partners consumed enormous quantities of cocaine and quaaludes and regularly employed prostitutes. Mr. Belfort eventually served 22 months in prison.

Given that history, it can feel slightly surreal to hear an older, more grizzled Mr. Belfort proclaim that he is “massively looking forward to regulation” in the crypto industry. “I’m not interested in separating people from their money,” he said. “That’s the opposite of how I act right now.”

Still, the crypto workshop at his house was not free: Guests paid one Bitcoin for a seat, or the cash equivalent, which is roughly $40,000.

The workshop began at 9 a.m. on Saturday. The guests — chosen from a pool of more than 600 applicants — milled around Mr. Belfort’s backyard, eating made-to-order omelets and trading tips about Bitcoin mining and tokenomics. A crypto miner from Kazakhstan relaxed in the sun with an aspiring blockchain influencer who runs a roofing company in Idaho. A Florida businessman explained his plan to use NFTs in a start-up that he’s pitching as Tinder for music. Some of the guests said they paid for the workshop because they are die-hard fans of the Wolf; others simply wanted to network with fellow entrepreneurs.

By 9:15 a.m., the mimosas were flowing, but Mr. Belfort was nowhere to be seen. “The U.S. dollar is going to crap,” said the roofing executive, Doug Bartlett. A few minutes passed. Still no Wolf. “The Wolf is still sleeping?” one guest wondered aloud.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/15/technology/jordan-belfort-wolf-cryptocurrency.html

Its store in Paramus will be reserved for medical-use sales only, she said. Green Thumb’s dispensaries in Paterson and Bloomfield — both of which are within 15 miles of Manhattan — will be open for medical and recreational sales, she said.

Each medical-marijuana company in New Jersey is permitted to operate as many as three dispensaries, although not all do. The companies authorized on Monday to begin selling cannabis to all adults have dispensaries throughout New Jersey: Acreage CCF New Jersey; Ascend Wellness; Columbia Care; Curaleaf; Green Thumb Industries (GTI); TerrAscend; and Verano.

In northern New Jersey, companies approved for expanded sales also operate dispensaries in Elizabeth, Maplewood, Montclair and Rochelle Park. Nearer Pennsylvania, there are stores in Bellmawr, Bordentown, Deptford, Edgewater Park, Phillipsburg and Vineland.

Last month, the commission put off making a decision about whether to permit medical-marijuana shops to begin selling products to all adults, citing supply constraints and other concerns. The delay led to criticism from lawmakers eager to open the adult-use recreational market.

Nicholas Scutari, a Democrat who is the president of the State Senate and has pressed for years to legalize marijuana, threatened to hold public hearings if recreational sales did not start soon.

“We need to get the legal marijuana market up and running in New Jersey,” Mr. Scutari said in a statement. “This has become a failure to follow through on the public mandate and to meet the expectations for new businesses and consumers.”

In November 2020, New Jersey voters approved a referendum in support of legalizing marijuana; several months later lawmakers adopted a bill making certain quantities of the drug legal and laying out broad parameters for the new industry.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/11/nyregion/marijuana-sales-nj.html

“When it first started happening, I noticed it on Instagram,” he said. “I began seeing the old paintings on their walls and their booth seats appearing in people’s pictures, and I was like, ‘Are people starting to go to Forlini’s?’”

Since the 1950s, the family-owned restaurant — just down the street from the Manhattan Criminal Courts Building — was a standby for the courthouse crowd, serving lobster fra diavolo and chicken cacciatore to generations of judges, lawyers, secretaries and bail bondsmen. It underwent an unintended metamorphosis in 2018, after Vogue magazine hosted a starry pre-Met Gala party there, luring a new breed of regulars that included magazine editors, designers, stylists and skaters. The art crowd and the downtown literary set also adopted Forlini’s as a canteen.

As Eater reported last week, the Forlini family recently sold the building that housed their establishment for an undisclosed sum to an unknown buyer. The family had purchased 91-93 Baxter Street in the late 1960s, and it had been listed for $15 million in 2019.

Behind the restaurant’s locked doors, things have been busy since the owners’ rush to vacate the premises.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/08/style/forlinis-closing.html

“When you open stores, your business gets much stronger in that region because people are passing by and can just walk in,” he said, adding that his clientele likes to “feel and touch our offerings and get that experience.”

Mr. Soleimani declined to disclose his rent, but said he had a two-year lease with an option to stay for five years. He added that he had planned to open stores this year in Chicago, Houston and Miami. He found that some rents had declined during the pandemic, but that those discounts were unavailable in the locations he sought.

The same held true for Todd Snyder, a men’s wear designer who started his namesake line in 2012. He opened his first store near Madison Square Park in Manhattan in 2016. Rather than a quick rollout of subsequent stores, however, Mr. Snyder took a deliberate approach, choosing locations with special appeal. These included a former liquor store in TriBeCa, a century-old building in which he has retained the original fixtures.

He has also opened in stores in Rockefeller Center; East Hampton, N.Y.; and Greenwich, Conn. The rents vary, but there are no bargains. Rather, he said, the square-foot price is generally “more expensive than it was two years ago.”

Mr. Snyder, whose company is now owned by American Eagle Outfitters, envisions running 20 stores nationwide, but he does not anticipate that in-store purchases will exceed more than 20 percent of his revenue.

Some retailers lease their spaces directly, but others have chosen a different approach. On Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, where Another Tomorrow has its store, several other digitally native brands line the streets, including Mack Weldon, Goodlife Clothing and Brooklinen. These companies relied on Leap, one of several start-ups that operate a “retail as a service” model, offering help in leasing and expanding stores and gathering data on shoppers.

Leap leases locations in clusters and then subleases them to retailers, said Jared Golden, a co-founder and co-chief executive of Leap. In turn, the brands pay a fee that covers rent, labor and insurance, as well as a percentage fee based on the store’s sales, he said. At the end of 2021, the company had about 50 stores in Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/23/business/direct-consumer-retail-stores.html

Other states have tried to emphasize equity in their markets. But in California, for example, such efforts have been complicated by strict regulation, high taxes and substantial barriers to entry that have left the state struggling, years later, to quell a thriving black market of untested, untaxed weed.

And in New Jersey, social equity candidates who hope to take advantage of a law similar to New York’s have struggled to find capital and secure leases — part of the impetus behind New York’s $200 million expenditure.

The news of the governor’s plan drew a sharp rebuke from State Senator Rob Ortt, the minority leader, who criticized the Democrats who control Albany for handing out “hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to those who have broken the law.”

“This is just another reminder that Albany is out of touch with the needs of law-abiding New Yorkers, who pay their taxes, and do the right thing,” Mr. Ortt said in a statement.

Mr. Alexander dismissed criticism over the decision to favor those with prior criminal records, saying that the Legislature had made clear its intentions in passing the law last year, and noting that the state regularly funds economic development in a range of industries.

State Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes, the Assembly’s majority leader, said that the move to prioritize those with marijuana convictions was crucial in ensuring that the industry wasn’t dominated by out-of-state conglomerates.

“We’re trying to do what no other state has done, and that’s focus on their people,” said Ms. Peoples-Stokes, an architect of the law. “It’s critical because it’s a huge industry that’s going to grow our economy a lot, and I think it makes sense to let that growth begin with New Yorkers.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/09/nyregion/marijuana-sellers-licenses-hochul.html

Self-employed business owners who want to save more than $6,000 a year can choose between two retirement savings accounts created for sole proprietors. For 2022, a Simplified Employee Pension plan (SEP I.R.A.) allows contributions of up to 25 percent of income or $61,000 for 2022, while a solo 401(k) allows contributions up to $20,500. With either retirement account, contributions are tax deductible and will reduce your taxable income. The only requirement for the solo 401(k) is an employer identification number, which is easy to obtain through the Internal Revenue Service.

If you’ve been contributing to an employer-sponsored retirement plan before you quit, you could leave your account where it is (and possibly pay administrative fees), or you can roll it over into an I.R.A. If you plan to find another job, you might want to wait and transfer it into your new employer’s retirement plan, assuming one is offered. You also have the option of cashing out your 401(k) but you’ll be charged a 10 percent tax penalty in addition to paying income tax on the total amount because the account was funded with pretax dollars.

Determine how much to save

Saving for retirement when you’re trying to build a new business and pay your monthly bills can be tricky.

Before you open a self-directed retirement account, Mrs. Meyer recommends, make sure there is enough income to pay monthly bills, including health insurance premiums, and save at least $1,000 in cash to pay for any unexpected expenses without using credit cards. Once those basics are covered, it’s time to save for retirement, even if it’s just a small amount of money each month.

“Psychologically, it can be challenging to tie up your money in a longer-term investment when you’re just starting a new business,” said Kristen Anderson, the chief executive and co-founder of Catch, an app that helps users save for retirement by automatically depositing a percentage of their income into an I.R.A. The idea is to recreate the experience that users are accustomed to with an employer-sponsored plan without locking them into saving a specific dollar amount each month.

When Keagan Schmidt of Hopkins, Minn., quit her job as a financial adviser in October to work for DeeperThanMoney, an online financial literacy start-up that doesn’t offer employee benefits, she and her husband, Derek, each opened a Roth I.R.A. The couple, both 27, set up their I.R.A.s to get a $500 deposit from their joint checking account at the beginning of each month. The goal is for each to save $6,000 this year.

“With no 401(k), I have resorted to maxing out my Roth I.R.A., first and foremost,” Mrs. Schmidt said.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/05/business/quitting-your-job-retirement-ira.html

Himalayan Dumplings by Kyikyi, in Beaverton, Ore., recently began selling a line of frozen momo. The founder, Tenzin Yeshi — known as Kyikyi — uses her social media platform to raise awareness about all aspects of Tibet, where her parents were born and which they fled for Nepal. So on her Instagram feed, amid photos of succulent momo with bright red dipping sauce were images of Tibetan flags and calls to boycott the Beijing Olympics. An explanatory cooking video about baking round Amdo Phaleb bread, narrated by Kyikyi, mentioned that Amdo, the region where the bread originates, was the birthplace of the Dalai Lama — and that it had been largely absorbed by China.

“When you are a vocal Tibetan, speaking out about our occupation and the persecution, they will just come to you,” Kyikyi said of online trolls.

Occasionally Kyikyi writes rebuttals. “I take the time and effort to respond, and be respectful about it, and say, ‘Have a good day,’” she said.

The founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply, Sahra Nguyen, has zero tolerance for trolls. Ms. Nguyen sources her beans from Vietnam, where her parents were born. They eventually fled as refugees to the United States after the Vietnam War. Ms. Nguyen roasted more than 80,000 pounds of beans last year in Brooklyn, the company’s home base.

“As a company, our policy is we don’t engage, we don’t respond,” Ms. Nguyen said. “I don’t want my employees to enter a toxic environment.” Antagonistic or demeaning remarks are deleted or hidden on their online channels.

“It’s about really taking and keeping control of the narrative that we want to share,” she said, adding that she’s also mindful of customers. “I don’t want them to experience that type of negativity, either.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/business/asian-food-business-online-trolls.html

Members with at least one $FWB token (current price: about $45) can read the group’s newsletter and blog posts. Local membership, which requires holding at least five tokens, comes with limited access to the group’s chat rooms on Discord, a talking and texting app, as well as entry to offline events. Global membership costs 75 $FWB — roughly $3,400 today — and includes access to all Discord chat rooms. (Friends With Benefits lent a Times reporter five $FWB tokens in order to view the Discord chats; those tokens have been returned, and the reporter does not have a stake in the organization.)

The group has chapters in New York, Los Angeles and London, but its real headquarters is its Discord server, where members swap outfit-of-the-day photos on the #selfies-n-fits channel, share financial advice on #trading-stonks and #taxes, and debate new proposals for community governance, such as a recent proposal to spend $20,000 from the group’s treasury to develop a members-only subscription coffee service. (As with most DAOs, major group decisions are voted on by token holders and recorded permanently on the Ethereum blockchain.)

Culturally, the membership skews less “Lamborghini-driving Bitcoin bros” and more “D.J.s from Williamsburg who dabble in Ethereum on the weekend.” In a recent orientation session, new members introduced themselves: an intellectual-property lawyer, a poet-slash-investor, a brand strategist for Nike, a handful of musicians and software engineers.

“We’re kind of the anti-crypto crypto club,” Raihan Anwar, a founder of Friends With Benefits, told the newbies.

Being organized as a DAO, rather than a traditional corporation, has advantages. The group can easily take stakes in members’ projects, or reward them with $FWB tokens for contributing useful work. Members can leave anytime by selling their tokens. And if the price of $FWB rises, every member stands to benefit.

But attaching a community to a volatile crypto token has risks. Last year, a service that Friends With Benefits used to create its tokens was hacked. $FWB’s value plunged 99 percent. The community voted to issue a replacement token and avoided a total collapse. Still, $FWB tokens now trade at around $50, roughly 75 percent lower than their peak.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/technology/friends-with-benefits-crypto-dao.html

At work, he makes one exception to the secrecy. On calls with clients, he often uses his actual first name to introduce himself, concerned that traditional business executives may be uncomfortable working with someone known simply as Legend.

Over the last year, the venture capital firm Paradigm has also hired engineers and researchers who operate anonymously; they appear on the company’s staff page under pseudonyms. The most recent hire was a crypto engineer who goes by Transmissions11 and attends high school “in his spare time,” according to his company bio. (Jim Prosser, a Paradigm spokesman, said the employees’ bosses knew their identities.)

In interviews, anonymous crypto entrepreneurs and engineers offered a variety of reasons for concealing their names. Some feared that a regulatory crackdown could put them in the cross hairs of law enforcement. Others said they disliked the attention or worried that their growing wealth could make them targets for thieves and hackers.

The nameless entrepreneurs often take extreme steps to keep their identities private, using voice-altering software on calls or requiring business partners to sign nondisclosure agreements.

Some venture firms are willing to invest in them anyway. Last year, 0xMaki, a developer who helped run the prominent crypto project SushiSwap, raised $60 million from a group of venture investors, including Ms. Wu, without disclosing his real name to them. (The deal fell through after members of SushiSwap — a so-called decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, in which individual investors hold significant sway — raised concerns about the funding.)

Last summer, the anonymous founder of Alchemix, another major crypto project, raised $4.9 million from a group of venture firms led by CMS Holdings. Dan Matuszewski, a founder of CMS, said he never asked the project’s leader, who uses the pseudonym Scoopy Trooples, to reveal his identity.

“A lot of these guys have reputations from over the years,” Mr. Matuszewski said. “It doesn’t seem like it makes a ton of sense for them to run off and abscond with the funds.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/technology/cryptocurrency-anonymity-alarm.html